4ginnc

On a related note: is Sprint compressing their web page traffic? I'm in Beaverton, Or with a LTE signal of -109dbm RSRP and RSRQ of -9db. Lately, I've been noticing over the past week that a lot of the images on web pages like radaronline.com, huffingtonpost (even the mobile site) are low resolution and blurry. I tried changing web browsers (the samsung browser, dolphin and chrome) to see if that helped. Same blurry pics

 

I compared the same web sites on a T-Mobile phone (note 3), and images are very clear and high-resolution.

 

Has Sprint been compressing web traffic for a while now or only recently?

I have never experienced this on any network except AT&T. I have seen a couple people post this anomaly before, but most people say they haven't had this problem.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I use chrome and Firefox. I've done a bit of research on my own(I experience this on LTE and 3g, I use 5-15GBs a month), Sprint apparently compresses images to conserve bandwidth. Only on non HTTPS websites, so apps/sites like Facebook aren't affected by this.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I've seen this previously on my laptop when I would use my 3G aircard.  I started a thread about this about a year and a half ago when I was seeing some text saying the image quality was reduced:

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1797-sprint-image-quality-reduction-on-web-pages/

However, I haven't seen this in quite some time.  I'd guess probably since about the time my local towers were upgraded to NV. I can't say I'm 100% sure that's when it changed, but I haven't noticed this on my S3 or my laptop with the aircard in a very long time.

$199 for router; $79/mo (30 gb)  +$50 activation; on the surface it seems like a better deal

data wise than getting the Zing with a Peplink 4G router (which I have); but then you can put the Zing

in your pocket when a Starbucks need arises..does this new router have a much better RF

radio than the Zing?

If you could find a Zing on e-bay or somewhere so you don't have to get it on contract, you could do the same thing with the Zing.  I've been looking around a bit and thinking this might be the better option.

Tested this out and I had a poor LTE signal with the device. The LED on the router showed one bar of LTE. I performed a speed test on it and it hovered around 2 Mbps while on my phone it averaged around 4-5 Mbps. 

 

Tested my roku on it and it had a lot of connection issues more so than what I get with my 3G Overdrive (wimax never made it to the towers around me).

That's not a good sign.  I would have expected this device to have better reception than a phone and was hoping for even better reception than the Zing and other mobile hotspots due to the external antennas.  Of course, I don't know if the external antennas are for the Wi-Fi or LTE/3G signal, or one for each.

I will probably still give this a try myself and if it doesn't pan out then just return it.

Thanks for posting your experience with it.

Yes. On their website it is $99.99. but if you use your own device not theirs, it is 79.99

Yep, I called them and they confirmed that a 30GB plan (he didn't call it unlimited) was $79.99 if you bring your own device.  And he stated that the new Netgear LTE 6100D would be supported.  There is no contract, but there is a one-time $50 activation fee.  The local Sprint store told me they have the new router for $199.

I'm very interested now.  My only concern is picking up LTE here before LTE800 goes live.  I get a somewhat weak 3G signal now on my old 3G broadband card with an external antenna I have mounted outside.

Buy the device outright and BYOD it to bmi.net

You'll get 30GB for $79.99

Looking on the bmi.net website the "unlimited" plan (which says don't use more than 30GB) is $99.99 and not $79.99.  That puts this only $10/mo less than the Sprint 30GB plan they announced with this device.

AJ said earlier that they don't really compete in the same areas, so it's not like a monopoly.

Actually, if they competed against each other wouldn't it then be an oligopoly?  Since they each are the only provider of cable in their respective areas, aren't they really monopolies in the areas they serve?

What shold happen si the cities should start funding their own builds and selling those to the competition.  That would require voter approval and financing, but that will get done with less red tape, maybe.

Not too far from me, Wilson, NC provides their own internet service to it's residents to compete with Time Warner.  They have better speeds and lower prices.  However, NC passed a law to severely limit this in the future.  And other states are doing the same, with the cable companies lobbying heavily to pass similar measures in more states.  Kansas is one of the latest with one of the most restrictive laws in the country, and with cable company lobbyists currently rewriting the bill since it was receiving pushback.  It's really sad how much influence these large corporations have in policymaking at all levels of government.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-already-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/

Edit:  And here I sit, with no wired internet available in 20-frickin-14.  Neither CenturyLink or TWC seem to care about covering unserved areas, yet don't want anyone else providing access to those areas either.

I received a text last week from Sprint stating that NV upgrades will be mostly complete within the next month. Did anyone else receive the same?

Yes, I have also.  And a lot of people in markets all around the country.  Even Robert, who has Sprint devices but now lives in an area that doesn't have native Sprint service, received the message.

Basically, it's pretty meaningless.

Even in my very rural area where I live I am on the 30 Mbps down 3 Mbps up cable internet plan. I'd say areas with no broadband are kind of an edge case, and even still DOCSIS 3.0 is going to beat WiMAX in speed most of the time.

There are still plenty of "rural" areas that don't have broadband.  I'm about 4.5 miles from the center of a small town (about 5k people) and can't get CenturyLink or TimeWarner to bring service out this way.  Have fought with them for more than 5 years, gotten County commissioners involved, talked with the State Broadband Mapping office, and still nothing.  

So, I'm still using my Sprint 3G broadband card on the unlimited plan at home and an AT&T wi-fi hotspot with 10GB to use when that's too slow for work.  With everyone in the house using Wi-Fi through the Sprint card, we only use about 12GB or so per month.  And I max out the AT&T 10GB every month to use up the faster data.

Lenovo is on a buying spree.  They just agreed to by IBM's low-end x-86 server business for $2.3billion.

My mom bought herself one of the Proscan 9" tablets and hated it.  She couldn't figure it out, so she went and bought herself a Samsung tablet that she loves.  So, we gave my youngest daughter the Proscan and she really likes it.  I put the Amazon app store on there since the original "market" was junk.  It doesn't have the best screen, but for her to browse a few websites and play Flow Free and a few other games it's just fine.

The main problems I see with these lower end tablets are the screens, the default app stores aren't very good (and not necessarily easy to install a new one, although Amazon was easier than trying to get Google Play store), the OS most likely won't be upgraded to later versions of andriod and there are most likely no custom roms available.

I can't really offer any advice that hasn't already been postulated here. BUT I do know that there are tons and tons of threads about Lenovo and their finicky wireless cards.

 

I can say from having the U310 that the wifi was horrible, but with the Yoga the wifi is amazing. So i just chalk it up to bad wireless configurations from Lenovo.

 

 

-Luis

Yeah, I've tried searching some through the Lenovo forums but there's just too much stuff and so much unrelated it's hard to narrow it down.  I'm wondering if a new PCI-E card might be a better option.

EDIT (hit post too early):   Although, having to buy a new card for just this one location that I might use once every couple weeks just seems like a waste of money.  

Sounds like the problem I have at the gym sometimes. Its an open network with the little 24 hour sign on portal.  I noticed one day it wouldn't connect my phone at all.  The next day it was fine.  The day after that same thing.  So I tried something else.  I noticed they were using a 192.168.33.x  range for IPs with the 192.168.33.1 being the gateway.  So I forced my IP to .2 and boom it connected.  It confirmed what I thought, they left the default setting of 50 or 100 or whatever it is on the DHCP with a 24 hour lease.  So once it filled up the 100 it wouldn't give out anymore IPs until they started falling off. 

I had this happen when I took the kids to one of those indoor playground places one time. I couldn't connect so they reset the wireless router and it was fine.  The person at the front desk said they had to reset it a couple times a day.  Once I got connected I brought up the router's IP and was able to login since they kept the default id/password.  The DHCP lease was 24 hours which was terrible in their case since they had a new influx of customers every couple of hours, so I told them they should lower the DHCP lease and think about putting a real password on their router.  

You said you aren't getting any error messages when you try to connect to the network?

Well, I get a message from Windows saying a problem was encountered trying to connect to the network and then I tried the troubleshooting steps from there.  It tells me there is a problem with the wireless router but it doesn't tell me what.

i know my local library's wireless is protected and you can only access it after signing in on the website.  is this a possibility?

Not at this library.  And my phone and our other computers connect with no problems.  Can't get the wireless to connect at all.

Could be a bad profile for the wireless network. You could try removing the profile, and then reconnecting to the network

http://www.7tutorials.com/fix-troublesome-wireless-connections-removing-their-profile

 

If that doesn't fix it, I would try booting to another OS, to figure out if the problem is Windows. You can download a version of linux like Ubuntu, and run it directly from a cd or usb drive without affecting your windows install. If it works while in linux, then we know it's a windows problem, and can keep troubleshooting that.

 

If the problem is with your wireless hardware, you could grab a mini usb wifi adapter like this one for $10: http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WN725N-Wireless-Adapter-Miniature/dp/B008IFXQFU/

(or you could open up your laptop and put in a replacement mini-pcie card)

I've deleted the profile and then rescanned for the SSID but still with no luck.  Booting to Linux on a USB drive is a good idea.  I had one already a while ago but don't know where it is anymore.   Will need to find an empty one and rebuild it.  Maybe later this week I can get this done and retry it.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.

Just a basic question and you might have already done this. Did you go under manage wireless networks and remove it from the list and try re-establishing a connection to it? At some point the firewall may have got locked down and won't let the connection happen.

Yes, I tried that a couple of times but no go.

Going to assume the library has a secure network, correct?  If so do you know what type of security they are using for the WiFi (TKIP, AES, etc)?  How old is the computer, reason I am asking is because some WiFi capable devices will not work on certain types of encryption security, it will recognize the SSID that is being broadcast but will not ever connect.  I have had this problem before and as soon as I changed the type of security it started to connect.  

No security on the network.  The computer is about 2 years old, running Windows 7.  One of my home routers is using WEP and the other is using WPA2-PSK and I connect using WPA-Enterprise at the office so I know my laptop can handle those types of security.  This is an open network though.

The other Thinkpad we have is even older and it has no problems connecting.

I assume you are able to see the SSID of the library wireless? Does the wireless actually not connect, or do you simply not have internet access after you connect to the wifi? Also, is the access point open, or using some kind of authentication like WPA2/WPA/WEP? I'd bet the wireless access point is actually separate hardware from the router.

Yes, I'm able to see the SSID of the library but I just can't connect.  I was able to connect once a few months ago after a couple of reboots but not since.  It's an open access point, no security.  And you may be right about the separate hardware.  I saw Linksys antennas sticking out of the roof but the router login said SonicWall.  The librarian said she "rebooted the wireless",but I don't know exactly which piece she meant when she said that and she probably didn't either.  

I'm having no problems using the Next Unread Topic buttons. But then again, with Administrator access, sometimes things work differently for me.

Yeah, still having this problem and only with the Spark thread.  I even tried in Internet Explorer today since I typically use Chrome to make sure it wasn't something with the browser and still the same issue.  Tried following the topic and then unfollowing, but still have a problem.

Really bizarre that it's only the Spark thread.

Not really a Sprint related topic, but it is networking...

I've got a Lenovo W510 laptop for work and can connect to wi-fi everywhere I go except for one location.  Our County has 3 libraries and I have no problems at 2 of them but at the 3rd, which just happens to be closest to our kids school and where I go with them sometimes, I just cannot connect with my laptop.

Our other laptops connect fine, my phone connects fine, our tablets connect fine but for whatever reason my laptop and this library's wi-fi just seem to hate each other.  Last time I went, I asked them to reboot the router (which they did) and I rebooted my laptop all without success.  The librarians aren't very tech savvy, so beyond resetting the router they weren't much help.

I've made sure I have the latest drivers, bios, etc.  Tried disabling 802.11n, setting a specific channel, etc.  Nothing made a difference.  There's really nothing in the event logs or in the Intel wireless event viewer that seems to give me any clues.  Not sure what router they have, but when I went I put in the router IP on my phone's browser it came up with a SonicWall login page.  My laptop has an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 AGN adapter.

Any thoughts or suggestions to try next time I'm over there?  No clue at this point why it's only at the one location and with only this one machine.

Thanks.

Are you still getting the problem?  IP Board did a total wipe and refresh on the New Content feature on our servers.

 

Robert

Argh....   Got this message again today when the Spark forum was the only one left unread:

Anyone else?

Does anyone know if the update should have been rolled out to everyone by now?  I still haven't received an OTA notification that it was ready.

I previously had Clockwork Mod recovery on there so I could root the phone, but restored the stock recovery a few weeks back.  I tried downloading the package file then as well and install from my sdcard but that failed.  And to this point I haven't received an OTA notification even though I've manually checked several times.

Are you still getting the problem?  IP Board did a total wipe and refresh on the New Content feature on our servers.

 

Robert

Hi Robert,

I was on vacation and then in meetings all last week so I've really been using tapatalk the last couple weeks.  However, the last couple of days I haven't noticed this issue anymore.  So it looks like it's been fixed.

Thanks.

Michael

A bunch (37) of 3G acceptances in the Raleigh market today.  Mostly south/southwest of Raleigh.  Maybe they're starting to move quickly to resolve the eCSFB issues.

Thought it was cool too. If you put a wrong number it puts a 0 in one of those codes.

 

I tried the few Sprint numbers I know and only found one that had a closed ticket. Only thing cool for me was it showed the market name.

I noticed the Market name too, but only on the closed ticket.  On the still open ticket it wasn't there.  And on the open ticket the market was South Carolina : Greenville / Spartanburg / Anderson Market  which isn't my home market and someplace I've traveled through once maybe a year and a half ago.  Maybe it was there just because of the proximity to NC...  who knows?

Interesting.

 

serviceTrenderMessage="Sprint has a known issue impacting one of your most used towers. See the Service Alert Details section for more information on the known issue. If you have questions about the known issue or need further support, please call Customer Care for assistance (message 333)."

 

 and

 

ticketInformation="Our records indicate that we began our Network Vision upgrade to this tower on Tue, 29 Oct 2013.

I saw this message too, but a start date of Nov 7, 2013 and an expected completion of Feb 3, 2014.  Wish I knew which tower it was.